Robtel Neajai Pailey

Robtel Neajai Pailey is a Liberian scholar-activist with more than 20 years of combined personal and professional experiences in Africa, Europe and North America. Her core areas of research expertise include the political economy of development, migration, conflict, post-war recovery, governance and race. She has conducted multi-sited fieldwork in Barbados, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Denmark, Ghana, India, Lebanon, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, the United Kingdom and United States.

 

Pailey is author of the monograph Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia (Cambridge University Press, 2021), which won the 2022 African Politics Conference Group (APCG) Best Book Award and the 2023 African Studies Association of Africa (ASAA) Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award for Excellence in African Writing. It also contributed to the passage of Liberia’s dual citizenship law, earning Pailey an inaugural Rising Star Impact Prize from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2025. 

 

Her research has been published in scholarly journals including Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, Globalizations, Critical African Studies, Third World Quarterly, Development and Change, Democratization, Migration Studies, African Affairs, Review of African Political Economy, Citizenship Studies, Liberian Studies Journal, Humanitas; as well as in edited volumes such as The Essential Guide to Critical Development Studies (2021), Oxford Encyclopedia of African Politics (2020), Leadership in Post-colonial Africa: Trends Transformed by Independence (2014) and From the Slave Trade to ‘Free’ Trade: How Trade Undermines Democracy and Justice in Africa (2007), amongst others. An increasingly sought-after thought leader and public scholar, she has provided expert commentary for radio, print, television and online news media across the globe.

 

Pailey obtained BA degrees in African Studies and English Literature from Howard University in 2004, an MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford in 2007 and a PhD in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London, in 2014. In July 2024, she served as 177th Independence Day National Orator of the Republic of Liberia and was inducted into the Order of the Star of Africa, one of the country’s highest civilian honours, for her ‘distinguished service’. 

 

Previously an Ibrahim Leadership Fellow at the African Development Bank Group and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford, Pailey currently serves as Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2021). Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Peer-reviewed journal articles

 

Marshall, Jenna, Pailey, Robtel Neajai, Patel, Kamna, Rivas, Althea-Maria, and Wilson, Kalpana (2026). “Development’s Race Problem: Post-Black Lives Matter Erasures, Palestine and the Politics of Publishing.” Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 58 (6): e70220. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/anti.70220

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai and Harris, David (2026). “Liberia’s Electoral Exceptionalism as Democratic Consolidation and How West Africa Compares.” Critical African Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2026.2691788

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2024). “Stopping Firestone and Starting a Citizen ‘Revolution from Below’: Reflections on the Enduring Exploitation of Liberian Land and Labour.” Third World Quarterly 45(1): 61-78.

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2020). “De-centring the ‘White Gaze’ of Development.” Development and Change 51 (3): 729-745.

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai and Harris, David (2020). “‘We Don’t Know Who Be Who’: Post-party Politics, Forum Shopping and Liberia’s 2017 Elections.” Democratization 27 (5): 758-776.

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2018). “Between Rootedness and Rootlessness: How Sedentarist and Nomadic Metaphysics Simultaneously Challenge and Reinforce (Dual) Citizenship Claims for Liberia.” Migration Studies 6 (3): 400-419.

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2017). “Liberia, Ebola and the Pitfalls of State-building: Reimagining Domestic and Diasporic Public Authority.” African Affairs 116 (465): 648-670. 

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai and Harris, David (2017). “Liberia’s Run-up to 2017: Continuity and Change in a Long History of Electoral Politics.” Review of African Political Economy 44 (152): 322-335. 

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2016). “Birthplace, Bloodline and Beyond: How ‘Liberian Citizenship’ Is Currently Constructed in Liberia and Abroad.” Citizenship Studies 20 (6-7): 811-829.  

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2011). “Evaluating the Dual Citizenship/State-building/Nation-building Nexus in Liberia.” Liberian Studies Journal (36) 1: 1-24.

 

 

Book chapters

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2021). “Race in/and Development” in Henry Veltmeyer and Paul Bowles (eds) The Essential Guide to Critical Development Studies (2nd edition). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 31-39.

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2020). “Women, Equality, and Citizenship in Contemporary Africa” in Nic Cheeseman (ed) Oxford Encyclopedia of African Politics. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1834-1856.  

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2017). “Silver Lining, Silver Bullet or Neither? Post-War Opportunities and Challenges for Liberian Diasporas in Development” in Liberian Development Conference Anthology: Engendering Collective Action for Advancing Liberia’s Development. Monrovia, Liberia: USAID/Liberia, Embassy of Sweden and University of Liberia, 213-230.

 

Horst, Cindy, Lubkemann, Stephen and Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2016). “The Invisibility of a Third Humanitarian Domain” in Zeynep Sezgin and Dennis Dijkzeul (eds) The New Humanitarians in International Practice: Emerging Actors and Contested Principles. London, UK and New York, New York: Routledge, 213-231. 

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2014). “Patriarchy, Power Distance, and Female Presidency in Liberia” in Baba G. Jallow (ed) Leadership in Post-Colonial Africa: Trends Transformed by Independence. London, UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 169-187.

Miscellaneous

Pailey, Robtel Neajai and Ranta, Eija (2026). “Alternative Development in a Post-Aid World.” Globalizations. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2026.2737582

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2023). “Review of Bronwen Manby’s Citizenship in Africa: The Law of Belonging.” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 93 (5): 704-706.

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2020). “Comparative Review: Call and Response Conversations on Race, Racism and White Supremacy.” Migration and Society 3 (1): 320-323.

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2019). “How Africa Can Adopt a Pan-African Migration and Development Agenda.” Harvard Africa Policy Journal 14: 20-32.

 

Hendow, Maegan, Bravi, Alessandra, Kraler, Albert, Pailey, Robtel Neajai, Perchinig, Bernhard and Schaur, Katharina (2018). Resilience in the Face of Adversity: A Comparative Study of Migrants in Crisis Situations. Vienna, Austria: International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). 

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai, Kandilige, Leander, Shilue, James Suah and Zongo, Mahamadou (2017). Côte d'Ivoire at a Crossroads: Socio-economic Development Implications of Crisis-induced Returns to Burkina Faso, Ghana and Liberia. Vienna, Austria: International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai, Bomono, Henri Yambene and Hoinathy, Remadji (2017). Central African Republic at a Crossroads: Socio-economic Development Implications of Crisis-induced Returns to Cameroon and Chad. Vienna, Austria: International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).

 

Hendow, Maegan, Pailey, Robtel Neajai and Bravi, Alessandra (2016). Migrants in Countries in Crisis: A Comparative Study of Six Crisis Situations, Emerging Findings. Vienna, Austria: International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). 

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2016). “Long-Term Socio-Economic Implications of ‘Crisis-Induced’ Return Migration on Countries of Origin”, Migrants in Countries in Crisis Research Brief. Vienna, Austria: International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).  

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2016). Women’s Resilience: Integrating Gender in the Response to Ebola. Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire: African Development Bank Group. 

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2014). “2014 Ebola Outbreak Exposes Large Gaps in Financing Adequate Healthcare in West African Countries.” Development Viewpoint No. 82, Centre for Development Policy and Research, SOAS, University of London.

 

Pailey, Robtel Neajai (2014). SDI’s 10-year Positive Peace Crusade. Monrovia, Liberia: Sustainable Development Institute.